Expire
by Doc Scratch
Summary: The last thoughts of the Organization members as they die. Hints of slash. Discontinued.
1. Number IV

A/N: I have not (quite) given up on retrieving the pre-written but not yet posted chapters for this that I lost, but just leaving it to sit in the dust made me feel oh-so-sad. So I decided to give it a little re-vamp. A makeover, if you will. In the form of actually doing the deaths in order. Below is a copy of my previous A/N for the stories beginning. Modified as I see fit. Also, I'm using Vexen's dying lines from English subtitled Final Mix Re: COM clips. (Desperately wishes she actually owned FM.) So please don't go all purist on me… it's not my fault I have a memory too horrible to remember his original lines in the GBA version of COM!

A/N: Ok, you have to understand how weird this is for me. First of all, I don't usually do dramatic crap; I'm all about the humor. But I've been meaning to expand my borders a bit, and this story was bugging me... I love the Organization; I wish they didn't all have to kick the bucket. But when you're not on the good side, you usually die/disappear, and the Organization wouldn't have been the same if they'd been good guys. ...Then again I'm prolly biased, I like villains too much, always have. Anyway, this is a buncha one-shots on the deaths of the Organization. I make little attempt to be canon. There is going to be slash, since I'm partial to that type of thing; if it bothers you then either don't read, or just deal. Here are some pairings likely to appear in the story (this chap included): Marluxia/Vexen, Xaldin/Demyx, Larxene/Marluxia (one-sided), Axel/Roxas (one-sided...ya I got sucked into this. I'll go blow my brains out later.), Xemnas/Saïx, and possibly something concerning Luxord if anything good occurs to me.

No I'm not taking any bloody requests. Sheesh. Anyway, now that I've appropriately ruined the mood, I'm just going to write.

Disclaimer: Oh ya, I gotta do this too uh... ya... I don't not own no Nobodies. (Heh, figure that one out grammar bizzah!)

Number IV: The Chilly Academic

"Gahh!" The cry escaped Vexen's lips as he was unexpectedly knocked backwards by a sphere of fire.

Vexen didn't even need to look to know it was Axel, that snarky bastard. Number IV struggled to his feet.

"Axel, what are you…" Vexen had already guessed, of course. The question was more a formality than a means of deriving information. The question wasn't 'what?' it was 'why?'

It simply wasn't right to be able to taste his goal and have it torn away.

"Just stopping you from saying things you shouldn't be." Number VIII drawled. "And finishing you off." The statement was made as though it were an afterthought; Vexen knew better.

"No… wait!" As bare as his… semi-existence was, Vexen wasn't willing to let go of it. He had worked so hard, so strenuously, to attain the answers. That's all he'd ever wanted, was answers. As both Vexen and Even.

He was a scientist, had been a scientist, he lived for experiments, for theories and hypothesis and the verification thereof. True some of those experiments had been extreme, but the subjects were willing and voluntary… and who could've known the results would have been so horrendous?

Neither Even nor Vexen had asked for what had happened, it just had. A law of science; cause and effect.

Like right now.

Escaping a humiliating death at the hands of Axel had suddenly become Vexen's main priority, although let's be honest the situation looked bleak. Very, very bleak. And painful.

"We just exist. We are Nobodies." Axel crossed his arms. "But your memories and existence end here. Aren't you happy?"

"S-Stop!" Vexen was angry at the tremor in his voice, how could he be afraid of a mere neophyte such as Axel!? How could he show such weakness!? ...Because at the moment he was weak. The battle with the keybearer had drained him terribly, as Axel must have known.

That despicable coward! It was so like him to kill someone when they were helpless.

Why was it always Axel? Always the Flurry of Dancing Flames ruining his plans? Mocking him and destroying his lab, always Axel! ...No... That wasn't right.

It was always _Marluxia_.

Axel was a vague annoyance, a pebble in one's boot, compared to Marluxia. The self-centered, black-souled Number XI was more infuriating than a dozen Axels, and more than that, intoxicating. Damn him, but Vexen had been intrigued. Hatefully so, but all the same...

No, that wasn't right either. Nobodies couldn't hate. Nobodies couldn't feel! …damned if his mind wasn't putting up a hell of a fight against itself on that matter though.

Wrong again… but how? If his mind rebelled against the idea of apathy and hatred at the same time, than what _was _his subconscious trying to convey? What ridiculous idea was it telling him?

Surely not… Axel raised a hand, drawing Vexen out of his lightning quick self-analysis and back to the terrifying problem at hand.

"I don't want to... go yet." Vexen pleaded, but the last two words were cut off.

"Well, see you." Axel said lightly, obviously confident he wouldn't. The Flurry of Dancing Flames snapped his fingers, and Vexen quite literally went up in flames.

However it wasn't the fire he felt as he faded, it wasn't VIII's voice he heard, it wasn't Axel's face he saw.

Vexen saw Marluxia. And as the scientist was looking at that face and rapidly disintegrating, he realized the oddest thing.

The Graceful Assassin, for the first time in Vexen's memory…

Wasn't smiling.

And just as quick as Vexen's thoughts, nothing filled the space where once there had been Nobody.


	2. Number XII

A/N: Larxene!! Easily my favorite female villain, she so does not get enough love. Not saying that her fans are as obscure as say, my darling Vexen's, or the ever unfortunate Lexaeus (Seriously people, he's a big cuddly teddy bear! Love him dammit! Love him I say!), or Xaldin's. However, she lacks that one thing which sets exceedingly girly guys apart from actual girls, and for that her popularity has suffered. I blame all you straight game playing ladies. Gave up on girl characters a long time ago, didn't you? Yeah you can't fool me. I like Larxene the way she is: sadistic, bitchy, and female.

Ok… also I might like to take a liberty here and there on her preferences (coughMarluxiacough) but hey. She did hang out with the guy, so she must have liked him at least as a friend! And I like to think more, perhaps. Larxene really didn't strike me as the type of gal who'd hang with someone she wasn't fond of, unless it involved pain. Of theirs. Or someone in the vicinity of them. I'd mourn Larxene, but I know she's happily pussy-whipping the devil down in hell now, and would tell me to get bent if I offered her my condolences.

Really, how can anyone not love this woman!?

Disclaimer: I do not own KH or its affiliates. Or… I dunno… anything I can be sued for laying claim to.

Number XII: The Savage Nymph

Larxene wasn't one of the members who bought into that whole 'we no longer have hearts, so we no longer have emotions either' pot of bull. She knew darned well that the world at large still annoyed her, that she still felt a thrill of happiness upon stabbing someone, and that Marluxia for all his fag-ness was still less of a pussy than the rest of the Organization's males. Although she wasn't _completely_ sure that last one had anything to do with emotion. She knew that the control of lightning and darkness, the ability to summon her weapons on a whim, was the most elating thing she'd ever experienced.

Larxene also knew that she felt anger and hatred beyond all logical reason when that power vanished, sapped by the weakness brought on in the face of her defeat, at the hands of that key brat and his stupid followers.

"No… NOOOOO!! I refuse to lose to a bunch of losers!" She screeched. Larxene was tough, no one could argue with that. There was no one she couldn't hold her own against, and she'd worked hard for the privilege to say so. 'I'm not done yet!' she thought determinedly, hell-bent on calling back that power, on finishing this brat. Killing him and his useless companions! Killing them for the sake of her pride, for the sake of her happiness, and for the sake of Marluxia, who had asked it of her.

The weapons weren't coming, neither kunai nor lightning. She looked down at her hands in frustration.

"I'm… fading?" Something rippled through Larxene that she had never felt before, Nobody or Somebody. Something cold and clammy. Though she couldn't recall the sensation ever striking her before, she knew instantly, instinctively, what it was. Fear.

"This isn't… the way I…" 'Pictured it.' She finished. Larxene had always known she would die, everyone did, and she had always known it would be fighting. Indeed, XII would have been highly disappointed in any demise other than that of battle. But somehow… somehow she had never imagined it would be like this. That she would be so weak, so hurt, so tired. …So alone. A flash of bright blue eyes ran through her mind, a curve of delicate lips. Why hadn't she noticed before, that whenever she thought of dying, she had simply assumed Marluxia would be there with her? He wasn't though. Why would he be? She was only another pawn to him… no. More than that, a friend. But only a friend.

Marluxia wasn't the sort to risk death for a mere friend. Larxene knew that. It was one of the things she liked about him. But still… she couldn't. Not like this. Not to this child and not without him near her. Not without seeing him one last time, as cheesy as it sounded.

"I won't… allow…" 'Myself to fail him.' But she already had. Larxene smirked bitterly to herself, nearly laughed at her own patheticness, and at the irony.

Death was just as much of a bitch as life was.


End file.
